Experimenting with ideas

I have been trying out a few ideas today which I am hoping to include in my new piece of work. It is a continuation of the theme which I always seem to go back to and it is going to be yet another portrait. I will definitely make it quite different and it will be a lot larger than any work I have done so far, at the moment my plan is for it to be approximately 120 X 140 cms. This is a sneak preview of one of my samples, I will be developing this a lot more and will share my ideas with you as I progress. These are the very early stages and as you can see half the face is missing but check in later to see what happens.

Moving on

Yesterday I spent the morning at Hemmingford Grey displaying the work done by the children at the school. The display was interesting with lots of colour and movement. My initial plan of having a gradation of colour from dark blue to light had to be changed but this did not cause too much of a problem as I felt that the light bottom would have left the entire piece a bit unbalanced. Of course this project has been yet another learning curve and if I had to do the same thing again I would do it differently, overall I am pleased with the response I received from the children, their parents who took part and the staff at the school.
I believe that my husbands perfectionism is rubbing off onto me, since yesterday I have been constantly thinking of all the changes I could have made to ensure a better end result. To take my mind off things I spent some time in my studio with my Bernina.

At last!

I have not been able to blog for almost a month now. I have found it difficult to write. I have had very slow progress with my own work, although I have done a bit of sewing and enjoyed it a lot as in photo posted. I guess the end of the Vital Communities project left me feeling a bit empty, even though I have had a few short term projects booked.

After the Vital communities project I started a project with Hemingford Grey Primary in St. Ives. There is a very positive feeling towards the arts within this school and it is obvious as you enter the door. I like the fresh clean feeling all around the school and everyone makes me feel welcome. for the past three weeks I have been working with the entire school to create mixed media pieces on paper fabric. Each child makes a sheet of fabric, then following their drawn designs to create a piece of art based on a water theme. The techniques include printing, collage, embroidery and some embossing on foils.

It has been a rewarding experience and very interesting too, as each year group has produced really beautiful and very different work. The results have been exciting and for two days of the week I look forward to working with them. I am hoping that I will be able to post an image of the wall when the work has been installed. I am anxious to see it come together.